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Aging tuner drivers vs aging muscle drivers: different world?

jmrtsus

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#22
I'm 70...try and find a "tech" that can tune a carburetor today. Rare as dinosaurs. Try to find one to tune multiple carbs, change weights and springs in a distributor. Or add oil to a Solex Carb based on the seasons. I made good money in the muscle car days rebuilding 4 bbl carbs on the kitchen table for $60 plus kit. Going to the movies was a quarter then so 2 carbs a month and I was rich. I had a Porsche 9ll L with two 3 barrel carbs briefly, find someone to tune that now. Our FiST's will not be like 1st generation muscle cars, nobody will be searching barns for them. Most will have been modified and remodified and run into the dirt by then. A few will be in collectors hands and they will not sell to someone looking to tear it up. Mine will go to my grandson who will run it hard and learn how to drive a proper car with 3 pedals. And I hope launch him into a love of cars electric or ICE. Like most that lived in the 1st muscle car years at 70 now we could not afford muscle cars back then.
I had rich friends with a 390 GTA mustang, a modded 390 Capri, one brother had a 68' 442, another a Comet Cyclone and a the oldest a Mercury GT 351 of some kind. Truth is the GTA handled like a covered wagon and slow. The 442 made clouds of smoke and also slow, the only truly fast car on the list was the Cyclone with 4 speed, no A/C or power anything, bench seat and a built Hi-Po 289. Would out run all of them. The first era was lots of smoke and noise. A stock Coyote will out run even the GT 500KR of the day while on all season tires. This is the peak of ICE muscle cars, not the 60's/70's.

Now that were are finished raising and paying for schools for 6 kids we can have the cars we wanted back then. For me it was an Abarth Fiat 600 like the stock 1959 600D I drove to school parking with the rich kids Mopars, Goats, Bosses and Vettes. My dream car was resolved with my 2016 ST Mountune. My wife's dream was fulfilled with a 2019 Kona Blue Mustang GTCS Coyote when she shunned the AMG she thought she wanted and bought herself one after a test drive. As she said the AMG had status but no soul. The GT stays in the Sport+ mode and we call it the rumble mobile. She smiles like she is 18 again driving it. Ford understands Smiles per Mile. I will never own an electric car and I doubt my wife will as we will not get rid of our cars until we no longer drive. Todays cars have so much plastic under the hood it will be impossible to ever restore one I think.
 


Dpro

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#24
There is good chance that battery-powered EVs are a step in the direction of a fuel cell-powered EV but a hydrogen ICE combines the negatives of an ICE with the negatives of hydrogen-powered anything. Once we figure out how to make hydrogen without fossil fuels with any reasonable level of efficiency and how to move it around the country, store it reasonably well, and produce things that can use it at scale, it might become the next step. We can't do any of that, yet.

And the "oh, the poor grid" hand-wringing is nonsense. We should be improving the grid by localizing production and redundancy whilst encouraging folks to improve efficiency and electrifying their homes. Yep, you're right, if the grid goes down nobody can charge their EVs (or run their AC or keep their food cold...), but nor can they fill up their ICE cars or refine oil into gas. BTW, there are only about 900k (edited from 79k) Teslas in all of China, not "millions."

Maybe EVs aren't the bane of the grid but part of the solution; my truck has as much battery storage as does $150K worth of Tesla Power Walls. What if we all charge our batteries in the day time or during windy periods and pump some of that back to the grid when it's still and dark? Tesla is experimenting with that in CA right now. As I type this my roof is sending about 6kw to my neighbors cuz I don't need it. If it was going into my truck I could be burning it this evening, instead.

Sorry to go OT, but the pseudo-facts promoted by the petroleum lobbyists wear on me. The current state of EVs aren't great, or, maybe, not even good, but they are the best alternative we have to pumping rotten dinosaur sludge out of the ground, moving it all over the world, evaporating and condensing the best part, and burning it in our cars at 30-35% efficiency.
I am pointing out current issues and especially here in California. The state has a serious power grid issue that nobody seems to want to address properly. While you can tout Tesla’s power walls experiments the way power is handled in this state I Question efficiency in 13 years. The state has a poor track record outside of pollution control. We can’t seem to keep our roads in good shape we don’t know how to spend money if we tried for example. Ya I gotta stop because A: the list is long and B : it might be deemed political when it’s really just factual.
What the state wants is noble minded and for the most part good . How it intends to achieve and time frame well these people who make these mandates are not technicians , Scientists or workers. They are a board of people. Ideas are great but technicals and abilities have to be factored in.
In a sense I do not disagree with what you are saying but at least here there is a huge practical side that is not being looked at.
Like usual we are seeing knee jerk reactions rather than pragmatic decisions. This goes for either side of the opinion . Yes the country is way too polarized.
I am aware of the ability of large capacity battery EV vehicles being able to give back to the grid and the El Cajon school district is the first to move towards doing that with Electric busses . I was merely pointing out current inefficiencies that need to be addressed if we are going to even attempt an overly ambitious 13 year mandate. Not saying it can’t be done. Oh and yes Hydrogen fuel cells for EV’s will come before Hydrogen ICE if that ever does. I was again pointing out alternatives .
Put it this way they used to make transistors out of germanium because it was easy. Silicon was hard to work with and deemed to fail. :ROFLMAO: That’s why my father picked it for his Physics course study and Doctorate at Purdue. Yup his Thesis was a Silicon transistor and he wrote the first fast TTL which without large scale integration aka semiconductors would not have happened as quickly. So ya I am in the camp of never say never and just because it seems bad or hard does not mean it can’t be made to work . Technological break throughs happen because of people choosing to work with stuff others say won’t or are too hard.

Though this is off topic from the original discussion . Yes tuning will probably become a lost art like stained glass making, glass bottle blowing, Samurai sword making , etc… in the march of technology and manufacturing things become obsolete and all but forgotten.
 


jmrtsus

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#25
It’s a car enthusiast l forum. I take it with a grain of salt. I remember when ford announced their first v6 ecoboost motor and all the old timers talked shit on it. Now small displacement motors are the norm on fleet vehicles.

Most of the gas we used to burn had lead in it. The first few generations of motors that burned unleaded gas did not perform as well as their leaded counterparts. In the end the vast majority of people would agree the initial pain of converting away from leaded fuel was worth it.
I doubt you will find many "old timers" on this forum that talked shit about boosted cars, I have owned a Mazda 323 GT, a Carpi RS turbo, a Buick Regal Turbo and my FiST. Only the Buick was a POS! The Ford twin turbo V6 is awesome. So is the FiST 4 cyl. Also keep in mind the early EPA cars did not have computers controlling the emission's, it was all electro-mechanical and carbs. Compression ratios dropped like a rock and the cars were miserable to drive. You could still get high octane gas but the compression was so low no power was gained by using it.
Even today resto mods are much more common than straight restorations. The old muscle cars were fun at the time but the power, handling, brakes, tires and mileage lacked the efficiency, performance and reliability available today.
 


Dpro

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#26
I doubt you will find many "old timers" on this forum that talked shit about boosted cars, I have owned a Mazda 323 GT, a Carpi RS turbo, a Buick Regal Turbo and my FiST. Only the Buick was a POS! The Ford twin turbo V6 is awesome. So is the FiST 4 cyl. Also keep in mind the early EPA cars did not have computers controlling the emission's, it was all electro-mechanical and carbs. Compression ratios dropped like a rock and the cars were miserable to drive. You could still get high octane gas but the compression was so low no power was gained by using it.
Even today resto mods are much more common than straight restorations. The old muscle cars were fun at the time but the power, handling, brakes, tires and mileage lacked the efficiency, performance and reliability available today.
This is so true, my Turbo cars were Nissans and SR20DETs and RB25DET’s . Loved my 510 and 240z not exactly fast….well the 510 was once I rebuilt the engine and dropped a sidedraft Weber on it with a Delong Cam and 240z pistons. 240z’s were not bad given they were 150hp in a 2350lb car initially by 73 though federal crash safety standards would drive the curb weight up and hp would only increase by 30 hp. Effectively turning the 280z into a pig. Not to mention the fact that the cars handled like a truck at low speed due to the overhang of that iron block inline 6. Oh and understeered st speed until you put in throttle induced oversteer. Ya drifting it was kinda of necessity. So ya nothing to write home about but then neither was a 911 of the day which was the diabolical opposite insane lift off oversteer that would probably scare the daylights out of most FiST drivers. :ROFLMAO:
Corvettes well they were kind of a workout as though more like the Z.
Most of these companies did not sort out handling of said vehicles till the late eighties early 90’s. The Corvettes would hit their stride in the 2000’s . The Porches started being civil in the mid 90’s . Nissan got handling handling nailed in Z cars and 240sx’s at the end of the eighties with their famous independant multi link rear suspension. It was years ahead of its time and lots of companies still design rear suspensions based off the tech.
Ya previous IRS was cool but still a little primitive aka semi trailing arms, de dion style independent A arms etc…
Oh and ya those damn MacPherson struts what a engineering vs cost compromise. :ROFLMAO: Manufacturers still cheap out with that. Wishbone is king!
So ya I would do a resto mod 240z as stock the cars would like wow I actually drove these things. Lots you can do these to correct the issues I mentioned but for all things considered cars handle better and are faster now than ever before. If you told someone you wanted 300-350 hp in your 2750lb street car back in the day? Ya nuts. 350 hp in a 3500 pound Mustang was amazing.
 


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Intuit

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#27
Have you thought of the art of tuning electric cars?
I used to have a website and provided a service of tunning electric golfcarts.
Specifically, the 2002 Ford Think. They were designed to only do 25 MPH and I reset them to do 45.
There is a lot you can do with ramp and threshold settings.
There was a Top Gear episode where Rutledge Wood, Adam Ferrera and Tanner Foust pitted a few different EVs against one another. One of the "tests" was to see which car had the highest top speed in reverse. All three cars were severely governed in reverse, limiting them to something like 10~20 MPH. Rutledge secretly cheated, removing the governor from his. So he basically went highway speeds in reverse. (potentially very dangerous of course)
 


OP
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Thread Starter #28
Today i had a tesla scoot by me as i was about to turn off a busy road here. Nope, i had to abort my turn and go pass him. Not sure what kind of a Tesla it was, looked like the mini SUV kind but i gotta say, when he past me it was so unimpressive. No growl, no rumble, if i sneezed i could have missed him entirely.
 


jeffreylyon

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Today i had a tesla scoot by me as i was about to turn off a busy road here. Nope, i had to abort my turn and go pass him. Not sure what kind of a Tesla it was, looked like the mini SUV kind but i gotta say, when he past me it was so unimpressive. No growl, no rumble, if i sneezed i could have missed him entirely.
Yup, soulless. According to R&T my truck does 0-60 in 3.5 and a 12.8 1/4 but it just feels like a silent kick in the pants. My FiST is way slower and way more fun.
 


jeffreylyon

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I am pointing out current issues and especially here in California. The state has a serious power grid issue that nobody seems to want to address properly. While you can tout Tesla’s power walls experiments the way power is handled in this state I Question efficiency in 13 years. The state has a poor track record outside of pollution control. We can’t seem to keep our roads in good shape we don’t know how to spend money if we tried for example. Ya I gotta stop because A: the list is long and B : it might be deemed political when it’s really just factual.
What the state wants is noble minded and for the most part good . How it intends to achieve and time frame well these people who make these mandates are not technicians , Scientists or workers. They are a board of people. Ideas are great but technicals and abilities have to be factored in.
In a sense I do not disagree with what you are saying but at least here there is a huge practical side that is not being looked at.
Like usual we are seeing knee jerk reactions rather than pragmatic decisions. This goes for either side of the opinion . Yes the country is way too polarized.
I am aware of the ability of large capacity battery EV vehicles being able to give back to the grid and the El Cajon school district is the first to move towards doing that with Electric busses . I was merely pointing out current inefficiencies that need to be addressed if we are going to even attempt an overly ambitious 13 year mandate. Not saying it can’t be done. Oh and yes Hydrogen fuel cells for EV’s will come before Hydrogen ICE if that ever does. I was again pointing out alternatives .
Put it this way they used to make transistors out of germanium because it was easy. Silicon was hard to work with and deemed to fail. :ROFLMAO: That’s why my father picked it for his Physics course study and Doctorate at Purdue. Yup his Thesis was a Silicon transistor and he wrote the first fast TTL which without large scale integration aka semiconductors would not have happened as quickly. So ya I am in the camp of never say never and just because it seems bad or hard does not mean it can’t be made to work . Technological break throughs happen because of people choosing to work with stuff others say won’t or are too hard.

Though this is off topic from the original discussion . Yes tuning will probably become a lost art like stained glass making, glass bottle blowing, Samurai sword making , etc… in the march of technology and manufacturing things become obsolete and all but forgotten.
But Cali isn’t saying no ICE in 2035, they’re saying no new ICE in 2035, right? My mom drives a 20 year old Honda out there and will be driving a 40 year old Honda in 20 years if she’s still around. if I still lived in Cali I wouldn’t be worrying about charging my EV in 13 years, I’d be worrying about finding drinking water in 7.

Both problems are completely fixable if we just got our shit together…, but we won’t until it hits the fan, like with dumping lead into the atmosphere (or in paint) or blowing a hole in the ozone. Or grossly affecting the climate.
 


SteveS

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#31
Just saw in the news that since last year Virginia passed a law to follow CARB emissions rules, they have to ban ICE cars now too.
 


Intuit

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It's common to literally haul 2 tons of vehicle, just to transport 200lbs of person and a little bit of gear. We're figuring out how to make vehicles more energy efficient, but are offsetting those gains with heavier vehicles and quicker acceleration.

So far with climate change in our area, it looks like we might be seeing more days suitable for 2-wheel transportation. 👍😜
 


Dialcaliper

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Yup, soulless. According to R&T my truck does 0-60 in 3.5 and a 12.8 1/4 but it just feels like a silent kick in the pants. My FiST is way slower and way more fun.
It is possible to make a fun electric car. But Tesla’s, for all their Plaid are really competing with the luxury car market. BMW/Mercedes/Audi/Lexus etc. They are basically the electric equivalent of the recent “German muscle cars” when it comes to power and handling. The most direct comparison is a cheaply made Mercedes. Not a sports car.

It can be done. The Fiat 500e I have is actually a riot to drive. Replace the terrible OEM tires with performance tires mand a sway bar, it handles almost like a proper obnoxious hot hatch, if a little bit soft. Sadly discontinued, and the interior is slightly impractical.

But you’re right that most of the EVs being sold are fairly soulless, with the exception of maybe Porsche. Automakers are all entering their first new EVs to America in either the high margin luxury car market, or the competitive crossover SUV. There are few if any proper “cars” on the market except the appliance-like Leaf and Bolt.

Sadly, an affordable sporty compact car EV will probably be near the last thing to market for most automakers. The volumes and profit margins are too small, at least in the US. You’ll probably see some in come out in Europe, UK and maybe Japan that in typical pattern, won’t make it to the US
 


Dialcaliper

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#35
I am pointing out current issues and especially here in California. The state has a serious power grid issue that nobody seems to want to address properly. While you can tout Tesla’s power walls experiments the way power is handled in this state I Question efficiency in 13 years. The state has a poor track record outside of pollution control. We can’t seem to keep our roads in good shape we don’t know how to spend money if we tried for example. Ya I gotta stop because A: the list is long and B : it might be deemed political when it’s really just factual.
What the state wants is noble minded and for the most part good . How it intends to achieve and time frame well these people who make these mandates are not technicians , Scientists or workers. They are a board of people. Ideas are great but technicals and abilities have to be factored in.
In a sense I do not disagree with what you are saying but at least here there is a huge practical side that is not being looked at.
Like usual we are seeing knee jerk reactions rather than pragmatic decisions. This goes for either side of the opinion . Yes the country is way too polarized.
I am aware of the ability of large capacity battery EV vehicles being able to give back to the grid and the El Cajon school district is the first to move towards doing that with Electric busses . I was merely pointing out current inefficiencies that need to be addressed if we are going to even attempt an overly ambitious 13 year mandate. Not saying it can’t be done. Oh and yes Hydrogen fuel cells for EV’s will come before Hydrogen ICE if that ever does. I was again pointing out alternatives .
Put it this way they used to make transistors out of germanium because it was easy. Silicon was hard to work with and deemed to fail. :ROFLMAO: That’s why my father picked it for his Physics course study and Doctorate at Purdue. Yup his Thesis was a Silicon transistor and he wrote the first fast TTL which without large scale integration aka semiconductors would not have happened as quickly. So ya I am in the camp of never say never and just because it seems bad or hard does not mean it can’t be made to work . Technological break throughs happen because of people choosing to work with stuff others say won’t or are too hard.

Though this is off topic from the original discussion . Yes tuning will probably become a lost art like stained glass making, glass bottle blowing, Samurai sword making , etc… in the march of technology and manufacturing things become obsolete and all but forgotten.
I’d have to disagree - California does have grid issues, but they are farther along than many other states.

Regarding the new EV ban, California at least tried to go about it the right way - having multiple automakers on-board before announcing to the general public.

And I think tuning culture will stick around, especially in California. Classic cars will always be a thing. Even if it becomes harder to get gasoline and people turn increasingly to EV restomod. And part of the whole sustainability awareness is that more and more people are pushing back against disposable consumer culture, and pushing right-to-repair. The car technology will change just as leaded gas, carburetors and mechanical gave way to unleaded, emissions controls, fuel injection and electronic everything. (The drivetrain is just the last thing shifting from mechanical to electronic)

The arts you mentioned aren’t really lost - they just cease being part of most people’s everyday life and become the niche focus of enthusiasts - less common, less practical, but not lost.
 


SteveS

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#36


Ever wonder where your state ranks when it comes to the prevalence of power outages. If you live in California, you may want to keep a flashlight handy at all times; after nearly 10 years of tracking blackouts across the U.S., Eaton is crowning the Golden State the official Blackout Queen. Between 2008 and 2017, California endured 4,297 power cuts—more than double the number of next runner-up Texas, which experienced 1,603. New York came in third with 1,528 outages, followed by Michigan (1,369), Ohio (1,349) and Pennsylvania (1,256).
https://www.eaton.com/explore/c/us-blackout-tracker--1-2?x=NzOhds
The midwestern states and New York have blackouts primarily from weather-related accidents (storms cutting power lines). Texas does too, though they also have some heat related brownouts. California has that kind of reason, but moreso from equipment failure and "no cause" (25%), which includes just plain too much demand.
 


Dialcaliper

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#37




https://www.eaton.com/explore/c/us-blackout-tracker--1-2?x=NzOhds
The midwestern states and New York have blackouts primarily from weather-related accidents (storms cutting power lines). Texas does too, though they also have some heat related brownouts. California has that kind of reason, but moreso from equipment failure and "no cause" (25%), which includes just plain too much demand.
Touché…

The three states with the highest output of renewables are Texas, Washington and California.

Washington basically gets the advantage of massive dispatchable hydro production, so it doesn’t have the same grid problems.

Texas leads far and away in wind power, and California has by far the highest the solar output. California has reached 17% Solar 7% Wind and Texas is at 20% wind. That’s total kWh generated. California recently had a nice summer day where, very briefly, 100% of demand was Solar generation.

Given that both states also have several entrenched, incompetent and greedy power providers who’ve been fighting tooth and nail against the shift and skimping on maintanance, is it any wonder that both have made the news with grid issues given that they are also working with the highest renewable mixes in the nation?

It’s sad because commercial wind and solar are now far and away the lowest cost power to install, below Natural Gas and Geothermal, and well below Coal (1/2-1/3 the levelized cost), so even the “fossil fuels are cheaper” argument is long gone.
 


rallytaff

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#38




https://www.eaton.com/explore/c/us-blackout-tracker--1-2?x=NzOhds
The midwestern states and New York have blackouts primarily from weather-related accidents (storms cutting power lines). Texas does too, though they also have some heat related brownouts. California has that kind of reason, but moreso from equipment failure and "no cause" (25%), which includes just plain too much demand.[/QUOTE

]You would think that living in a high temp state, where a/c is common, that those dumb and stupid politicians would have thought about updating our grid decades ago, but no, money is spent on other things that we don't need. High speed rail to NOWHERE comes to mind!
 


jeffreylyon

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Touché…

The three states with the highest output of renewables are Texas, Washington and California.

Washington basically gets the advantage of massive dispatchable hydro production, so it doesn’t have the same grid problems.

Texas leads far and away in wind power, and California has by far the highest the solar output. California has reached 17% Solar 7% Wind and Texas is at 20% wind. That’s total kWh generated. California recently had a nice summer day where, very briefly, 100% of demand was Solar generation.

Given that both states also have several entrenched, incompetent and greedy power providers who’ve been fighting tooth and nail against the shift and skimping on maintanance, is it any wonder that both have made the news with grid issues given that they are also working with the highest renewable mixes in the nation?

It’s sad because commercial wind and solar are now far and away the lowest cost power to install, below Natural Gas and Geothermal, and well below Coal (1/2-1/3 the levelized cost), so even the “fossil fuels are cheaper” argument is long gone.
I think that you're inferring that a high mix of renewable makes for an unreliable grid. I don't see that; Iowa is #4 in terms of the amount of renewable energy and it only had 53 outages. Oregon is #5 with only 75 outages. I looks to me that there is more of a correlation to grid complexity than a higher renewable mix.

CA has a ridiculous population density. TX has a less regulated grid; when TX froze and its grid went down the renewable plant were more reliable than the fossil-fueled plants, and that was even after the knuckleheads did stuff like delete the heaters from the wind turbine blades..., ya know, the heaters that kept the blades from getting loaded with snow and ice... so they got loaded with snow and ice, resulting in the pictures of helicopters armed with flame throwers melting said snow and ice which, I gotta saw, was pretty awesome. FL has very little renewable but, still, 107 outages.

The way I read the map is that diversity makes for a more reliable grid and complexity (and deregulation?) makes for a less reliable grid.

Renewable and gas is a perfect match as gas can flex quickly - burn more gas when renewable isn't producing and less when it is. Add some baseline nuclear (which is reliable but flexes for shit) into the mix and we've got the best of all. Coal has all the bad characteristics: dirty, expensive, and poor flex.
 




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